VENTING

AUTHOR'S NOTE/DISCLAIMER

A "Kim and the Callaghans" fic. Takes place directly after "Confidential". Belongs to Dick Wolf and NBC. I wrote this because Upton seriously annoyed me tonight.

"She pisses me off! So high and mighty! First she decides to horn in on information given to us by my informant and then she doesn't even have the decency to use one of her own informants for the case! None of the others would've done that!" Ryan was silent as Kim knocked back another shot of Tequila after the rant. Upton again, he thought to himself. This wasn't the first time she had raged about the woman, but it was the first time she had chosen Tequila to go along with the rant.

"It sounds like something Erin would've done. I mean, told you that sometimes you had to go out on a limb," he pointed out.

"But she wouldn't have horned in like that! Come on! You know her as well as I do! Her or any of the others would've talked it out! Not just…" She trailed off, motioning for another shot and the man nodded, doing as she requested. Yeah, this is going to be a hell of a night, he thought to himself as the woman threw back the shot. Not that he didn't understand where she was coming from, because he did. He just hated that this Upton chick had driven her this far.

"So, what are you going to do?" he wondered.

"Right now I'm not worrying about that. Just keep the damn Tequila coming," she answered.

"You got it," came the response and poured her another shot.

"She thinks she's so great, you know? Like we're supposed to be impressed because she came from Robbery/Homicide? She's not that fucking great!"

"I know." Don't engage. She's getting to the point where's going to be incoherent soon, he reminded himself. She hadn't gotten like this in a long time, and that worried him. Not that he would ever say anything, because in this state, she would likely take it as a hint that he wanted her to stop coming to him and that was the last thing he wanted. She and his family went back a long ways and he wanted her to feel free to vent for as long as she wanted to…